Children's Health Defense By
A North Carolina federal district court will hear the first 16 lawsuits against Merck alleging the pharmaceutical giant’s Gardasil human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine caused injuries.
The lawsuits were selected as exemplar cases from a larger pool of lawsuits pending in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina. They will serve as a series of “bellwether trials,” the outcome of which will shape the process for the growing number of claims brought against Merck for Gardasil-related injuries.
There are currently about 80 cases pending in federal court, with hundreds more cases likely to be filed in federal court in the coming months.
In August 2022, a judicial panel ordered the consolidation of more than 31 lawsuits then pending against Merck into multidistrict litigation in a single court. The panel said the individual lawsuits involve common questions of fact and consolidation would “promote the just and efficient conduct of the litigation.”
The consolidation order allows Gardasil lawsuits filed throughout the country to move into coordinated discovery and pretrial proceedings…
